By Barbie Sandler
One wants to bang one’s head against the proverbial brick wall when one reads the headline “Agony of adolescent pregnancies” in Friday’s Cape Times.
I have literally been writing about this for years and years and nothing changes. These poor girls are on a hiding to nothing. What an absolute disgrace that 4000 young girls up to date have delivered babies.
The men and boys, we all know, are mostly nowhere to be seen. Their responsibility ends after intercourse. The poor gogos who have had a hard enough life are now landed with the newborn so the 10-year-old can go back to school. As a society we are an absolute disgrace.
We need sex education from an early age but I believe a lot of the parents are against this. I have to ask why? Their children are having sex so at least teach them about contraception and their rights.
At the clinics , bring in sympathetic nurses who will help these young girls. Too many of the nursing staff turn the young girls away because it is against their principles or religion. Then they shouldn’t be at these clinics!
This really needs to be turned around. We have one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in the world. No wonder our kids can’t read or write with meaning. They come from dysfunctional homes with no father figure, the mother a child herself, the gogo probably can’t read and certainly has no money for books.
The kids are malnourished and only get one meal a day at school if they are lucky. How come the government can’t turn this around? Well they obviously can’t so the communities need to step in for the sake of their children.
But I don’t hold my breath and I know at the end of this year there will be hundreds more unwanted babies born to our youth. Cry the beloved country.
Cape Times
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